We all worry about the hard risks that can have an impact on our volunteers and the work they do, but too often we don’t think about the soft risk. Soft risks are the attitudes, beliefs and actions that expose our organizations to risks. Those risks may include the actions of staff – both paid and volunteer, interactions on social media, lack of training for leaders and volunteers - leading to risky behavior, and how failing to screen for characteristics or “fit” can open volunteers and the organization up to risk. This webinar is designed to help attendees identify soft risks in their organization and give them the tools to make changes to processes and culture to minimize and address these risks. What You'll Learn: * Understand how your organization's culture of volunteer engagement may be opening it up to soft risk. * Lead your organization though a soft risk assessment. * Design communication and training plans to address soft risk.

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We all think about hard risks…

3. What is soft risk?
Soft risks stem from attitudes and culture
• Lack of leadership around ethos and culture
• Groupthink and lack of self-perception
• Little or no upward communication, poor internal
communication
• Top down decision making, little or no decision making
or control from non-leadership roles
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What about soft risk?

5. And, why should we talk about it?
These stories illustrate how easy it is for soft risk
to affect an organization’s reputation or its ability
to run effectively.
• We work to minimize hard risks: training processes,
orientations, policies, liability insurance
• We need to bring the same thought and evaluation to
the soft risks that occur when volunteers are engaged
in work or with clients
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6. While many of the things we do to minimize hard
risk also help minimize soft risk – screening,
training, policies – when we review these activities
through the lens of soft risk we realize we may be
exposing our reputation to more risk than we’re
comfortable with!
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7. Determine Soft Risk
An organization's culture determines what types
of actions and behaviors are okay…
But, sometimes our culture allows, or even
rewards, actions that have negative outcomes for:
• our programs
• respect for the work volunteers do
• the community
• the organization’s reputation
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8. Determine Soft Risk
Soft risk can happen when:
• Internal perception isn’t tempered by outside perspective
• Culture prevents correcting or disciplining bad behavior
• Policies are on paper only
• Culture depends on unwritten rules or things “everyone
knows”
• Volunteers don’t have the tools or resources to find the
right answer or there’s more than one right answer
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9. Where is the soft risk?
Take a minute to share where you think your
organization might be exposing itself to soft
risk.
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10. Minimize Soft Risk
• Ensure that policies have buy-in and are
enforceable
– Enforce them!
• Address training and orientation outcomes
– Talk about them early and often
• Outline and define each role’s authority
continuum
– Where does the decision making start and stop?
• Provide resources and support
– What is the right answer?
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11. Minimize Soft Risk
• Talk about it!
– Model difficult situations or conversations
– Role play or have volunteers and paid staff switch
roles
• Know who’s the right person for the role
– Implement screening practices to ensure that you’re
making the right match
– Qualifications based on skills & experience
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12. Help others understand soft risk
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This isn’t something that
will go away if you don’t
think about it –
We need to talk about the
ramifications of soft risk in
the same way we do hard
risk.

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14. • Tell your stories
– What if…
– How would this look on the front page of the paper?
• Identify negative outcomes
– Link to the use of resource - time, money - and
reputation
– The more the work matters, the more soft risk can
damage your reputation
• Create buy-in around soft risk as an issue
– Story telling with morals
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Help others understand soft risk

15. • Identify the ramifications of the status quo
– Culture held hostage
– No accountability
– Failure to discipline or dismiss
• Changing roles for volunteers require new
attitudes
– There isn’t a lot of soft risk in stuffing envelopes
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Help others understand soft risk

16. • Tap into your ethics “backpack”
– Where is your gut telling you there’s a problem?
– http://cvacert.org/resources-and-
media/professional-ethics/
• Prioritize your soft risk issues
– What are your priorities, where is the greatest
impact?
– Use the work sheet to evaluate the risks
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Resources and Getting Started

17. • Work with leadership to start the soft risk
conversation
– What are your stories? What stories with morals can
you tell?
• Evaluate your foundation components
– Position descriptions, screening practices, training
and orientation activities.
– Where are you opening your organization up to soft
risk?
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Resources and Getting Started

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19. Thanks for attending!
Join us online:
Like us on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/VolunteerMatch
Follow us on Twitter: @VolunteerMatch
Visit Engaging Volunteers, our nonprofit blog:
blogs.volunteermatch.org/engagingvolunteers/
For any questions contact:
Jennifer Bennett
@JenBennettCVA
jbennett@volunteermatch.org
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